At 1:09 AM +0100 3/31/05, David Bedlow wrote:
>When I was a choir-boy my colleagues and I were obliged to spend what
>seemed like hours (and was probably at least ten minutes a week)
>practicing exercises designed to ensure we sang "sharp" leading notes
>and wide major thirds.   None of us had the faintest idea why we were
>doing this - including, I suspect, the choirmaster.  It was impressed on
>us that wide thirds were more "pure" and therefore "brighter"!  At the
>time I could not hear the difference.  I dread to think what the result
>was.
>
>David Bedlow

Not only choristers but string players are consciously trained that
way.  In part, for choristers, it's a matter of combatting the
tendency to go flat from fatigue, but mostly it's a belief (passed
down as received wisdom) that this is, indeed, a way to make the
sound "brighter" (although definitely not more pure!!).  The
barbershop chorus world has picked this up from classical
consultants, and practices it almost as a religious rite!

My Early Music Ensemble is preparing a G. Gabrieli Sonata for 3
violins and b.c.  The two most accurate of my violinists were playing
very high G#s, and I asked them to lower them.  It took my best
player several go-arounds before she could bring herself to do it,
because of her training.  On the other hand, in the Mendelssohn
Concerto (which she just played in a competition) the melodically
exaggerated intonation probably sounds just fine.

A few years ago a recorder trio from within that ensemble decided to
play a 20th century piece.  We were all very good at playing the pure
intervals required by renaissance music, but that didn't work for
this piece, and we had to fumble around for fingerings that would
restore us to equal temperament (which the composer assumed without
really thinking about it!).

John


--
John & Susie Howell
Virginia Tech Department of Music
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http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html